New executive director aims to change Montana's workplace culture.
Over the course of her diverse career, Robyn Morrison has counseled young people and coached corporate CEOs, raised money for her own startup business and secured financing for others; and she's worked in government, private industry and nonprofits. Change comes naturally to Morrison--which makes her a uniquely fitting leader for a growing young nonprofit organization that aims to change Montana's workplace culture.
On October 28, 2012, Morrison was hired as the executive director of WorkSafeMT, an organization dedicated to inspiring and advocating a proactive safety, health and stay-at-work/return-to-work culture across Montana. In her new position, Morrison aims work with the organization's volunteer board of directors in order to build upon the groundbreaking work spearheaded by them since 2008.
Toward those ends, Morrison is now reaching out across the state to spread awareness of Montana's less-than-stellar workplace safety record and encourage both employers and employees to help foster safe and healthy work environments.
SafetyFestMT returns to Missoula
When: Feb. 25 - Mar. 1, 2013
Where: Hilton Garden Inn, 3720 N. Reserve St., Missoula
Cost: Free to all Montana workers
What: SafetyFestMT provides training and resources to Montana workers in an overarching effort to nurture safe, healthy workplaces in all industries.
More information / Registration: www.SafetyFestMT.com or 406-444-1642.
"This is about changing a deeply rooted historical mindset in Montana," says Morrison, herself a Montana native. "It might be traced to our early pioneers, our miners and railroaders. We have this tough attitude about work. We often don't even acknowledge when our workplaces aren't safe and when our own actions, the risks we take, contribute to those issues."
The human and financial toll of that legacy is striking. Montana has one of the worst workplace safety records in the country with an incidence rate that's 47 percent higher than the national average. What's more, when Montana employees get injured, they tend to stay out of work an average of 23 days longer than workers in other states with similar injuries. And Montana's average health care cost per case is 55 percent above the national average.
Morrison knows that it will take time to impact those statistics. It will also take resources. After receiving one-time startup funding from the Montana Legislature in 2009, WorkSafeMT has been responsible for its own fundraising. While that creates additional challenges for the board of directors and Morrison, she believes that the organization's independent status ultimately provides both credibility and opportunity.
"Being an independent nonprofit allows us to bring together insurers, government, labor and management--parties that might not be sitting at the table making decisions together," Morrison said. "Having those voices together helps us develop broad strategies that just one segment probably wouldn't be able to accomplish on its own."
Morrison's professional background includes work at several nonprofit and for-profit ventures dedicated to social change (see attached biography). She has also started businesses and worked within state government, giving her a unique combination of skills and experience that lend themselves well to the demands of leading a startup nonprofit, said Carl J. Kochman, chairman of the WorkSafeMT board of directors.
"Robyn's passion for advocacy work, combined with her fundraising experience in both the private and nonprofit sectors, make her an ideal person to lead WorkSafeMT," Kochman said. "Her dedication to the well-being of working Montanans provides a powerful foundation for our efforts."
Morrison joins an organization that has already enacted positive initiatives to nurture new workplace safety attitudes. Led by a board of directors comprised of representatives from labor, private business, healthcare, workplace safety professionals and state government, WorkSafeMT was instrumental in establishing SafetyFestMT, a series of educational events held in various cities around the state throughout the year. SafetyFestMT sessions are free to any Montana worker and cover a variety of work-safety topics, from broad issues like creating a culture of safety in your company to OSHA-certified training on confined spaces, fall protection and much more.
The next SafetyFestMT takes place in Missoula February 25 through March 1, 2013. Leading up to that event, Morrison will travel on a media tour of Montana throughout the months of January and February. To schedule an interview with her, please contact Lori Warden or Joe Nickell at PartnersCreative, 406-541-2263 or prdept@partnerscreative.com.
Robyn Morrison biography
Robyn Morrison brings a wealth of diverse experience and a passion for advocacy work to her role as executive director of WorkSafeMT.
While living outside of Portland Oregon in 2009, she founded Genesis of Hope, a professional coaching and consulting business aimed at cultivating compassionate and plentiful commerce. Genesis of Hope built on Morrison's experience across a long career in which she has worked to nurture socially responsible and sustainable businesses in Montana.
From 1998 to 2001, Morrison was the state director for Small Business Development Centers and the MicroBusiness Finance Program of the Montana Department of Commerce, where she spearheaded a state interagency task force for low-income microenterprise development and managed a network of 10 Small Business Development Centers. The Montana MicroBusiness Finance Program was awarded the U.S. Treasury Department's Presidential Award of Excellence in 1999. Previously, Morrison served as CEO and president of the Montana Community Finance Corporation and the Development Corporation of Montana, where she helped to provide growth financing tied to job creation for Montana businesses. Morrison also founded Biz Savvy Professional Coaching and Consulting, which served entrepreneurs, executives and not-for-profit economic development and business assistance organizations. She was a founder and part-owner of The Brewhouse, Helena's first-ever brew pub.
Morrison has also served as a senior pastor, youth minister and program director at churches in Montana, Idaho and Oregon. Along the way, she has supervised the building of a new church, raised $1.7 million for another church construction project and helped grow worship attendance.
Morrison earned a Master of Divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion and a B.S. in business administration - accounting from The University of Montana.
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About WorkSafeMT
Established in 2008, WorkSafeMT was created as a public-private collaborative effort of business, labor and state agency leaders, health care providers, injured workers and workers' compensation insurers with the purpose of addressing Montana's poor work safety record and improving Montana's stay-at-work/return-to-work system. http://www.WorkSafeMT.com 
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Source: http://www.matr.net/article-53553.html
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